YOUR RANDOM DHS MONITORED PHRASE OF THE DAY

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The plunging economy of Ukraine has evidently become so bad that Ukrainians now can even feel safe to call publicly for stopping the war against the separatist Donbass region of the country, and for reallocating those military expenditures so that Ukrainians in the non-rebelling part of the country won’t starve to death.

Intense fighting between Houthi factions and Yemeni forces allied with a Saudi-backed military campaign continued on Sunday, just a day after the killing of approximately 120 civilians by a Saudi airstrike spurred an impromptu call for a five-day ceasefire in the war-torn and poverty-stricken country.

With the FBI and DoJ now involved in yet another Hillary Clinton scandal - that she sent confidential emails from her personal email server - it seems the 'presidential' former Secretary of State has felt pressured to come somewhat clean. While some might argue "what difference does it make?" The Washington Post reports that Hillary Rodham Clinton will testify on Oct. 22 before the House select committee investigating her role in connection with the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. The testimony - before the committee formed last year - will be in a open setting (apparently against the wishes for privacy that committee chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy initially requested).

"The Pentagon talks the talk of military innovation to deal with this new mix of threats but doggedly pursues costly weapons programs anchored in dangerous past compromises. Not only are the weapon systems unlikely to deliver well in today's conflicts, they also could become vulnerabilities exploited by America's adversaries during wartime," P.W. Singer and August Cole noted.

The typical reply to this kind of question resorts to what US force planners call “bean counting”. Typically, journalists use the yearly IISS Military Balance or a source like Global Firepower and tallies of the number of men, main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry combat vehicles, combat aircraft, artillery pieces, bombers, missiles, surface ships, submarines, etc. presented by each side in a chart.

The reality is that such bean counting means absolutely and strictly nothing. Let’s take a simple example: if a war happens between, say, China and Russia then the fact that China has, say, 1000 tanks in its Yunnan province, will make no difference to the war at all, simply because they are too distant. When we apply this caveat to the Russian-US conventional military balance we immediately ought to ask ourselves the following two basic questions:

While Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are bringing in a sizeable number of donations of under $100, Republicans have been going for the big money, like the huge score Ted Cruz just made from a pair of Texas frackers.

Even so, on July 16, Newsmax made a big deal of Hillary receiving donations from wealthy individuals, with the headline, “Hillary Clinton’s Donations From Hedge Fund Titans Exceed Republicans.”

Those Democrats are such elitists! You don’t want to be drinking milk when you read these things, at least not without a bib.

The middle class started disappearing in earnest in the late 1970s. Massive inflation started eating away at the standard of living for most Americans. Yet much of this was covered up by access to debt. Credit cards, creative mortgages, student loans, and auto debt all allowed Americans to continue acting as if prosperity was only an American Express card away. Credit card debt outstanding is now back up to $900 billion, a number last seen during the Great Recession before the great deleveraging. Americans have used debt as a means to cover up the reality that the middle class is disappearing. Credit cards are probably the clearest example of spending money you don’t have. Credit cards allow you to literally spend future earned money today. We always hear that many pay their balance off each month. Well the data shows something else. There is $900 billion in credit card debt floating out in the system.

On the heels of more weak economic data releases from the United States, a legendary chairman & CEO overseeing more than $175 billion, who is one of the most respected men in the financial world, issued a major warning to the financial world.

The International Monetary Fund stated on Friday that it had received a letter containing Greece’s request for a new loan. “We will discuss with the Greek authorities and with our European partners the timing and the modalities for the discussions,” the IMF noted in its official statement.

An aide for religious affairs to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday accused Israel of trying to drag the entire region to a religious war.

Mahmoud Habash, who is also the justice chief of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), told Xinhua that the endless Israeli repressive measures and the ongoing attacks on Palestinian worshipers in Jerusalem "are denounced."

"What is happening on the ground in Jerusalem rings a bell that Israel is trying to drag the entire Middle East region into a religious war," said Habash, in reference to the clashes that broke out in the old city of Jerusalem.

A Cambridge professor whose doomsday predictions of Arctic ice melt have been proved consistently wrong by reality has found an exciting new way to draw attention to his shaky scientific cause: mysterious, unnamed figures are trying to murder him and have already assassinated three of his colleagues.

Google Translate: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) acknowledges in its annual report that the policy of cheap money has failed. All the trillions would have produced no growth in the real economy. Central banks can not save the economy. The governments of the world must now resolve the crisis.

Webmaster's Commentary:

What arrogance. The private central bankers are now admitting that their eleventh marble system has screwed the world up, but demand government step in and fix everything. From the BIS point of view, that means looting the people to balance the books. From the peoples' point of view, that means shutting down all private central banks and tossing the bankers in prison for the monumental fraudsters that they have proven to be!

Seventy years after World War II, Germany plans to establish its first professorship devoted to the study of the Holocaust. The yet-to-be-named professor will start work at Frankfurt's Goethe University in 2017.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The Holocaust professor will share office space with the global warming chair, and the chairs of Alchemy and Phlogiston chemistry!

Congress' criticism of Iran deal due to serious flaws in agreement, Israeli minister asserts, blasting US Sec. of State for blaming Israel.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"Don't you dare criticize us, Mr. Kerry. Israel has the right to threaten Iran and all our neighbors every day, but no one has the right to threaten us. Israel has a right to exist, but the Palestinians do not. Israel has a right to nuclear weapons, but nobody else does. Israel has a right to demand money from the US taxpayer, but nobody has a right to demand anything in return! Israel has a right to bribe and tell other governments what they should do, but no government has a right to interfere with Israel! All what we need from you putzes in DC are those 'vetoes' at the UN, that regular US aid check, and to kill our enemies for us! That is your job! Anyone who disagrees is just a filthy Jew-hating anti-Semite who wants Hitler to come back and gas Jewish babies!!!" -- Nodding Yahoo

U.S. officials on Friday denied a Wall Street Journal report that the Obama administration was considering early release for Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer convicted of spying for Israel.

The Justice Department said Pollard must serve his full 30-year sentence. It stressed that he has long been eligible for consideration for parole in November but insisted that the administration has no say in how that process unfolds.

Two events last week brought yet further twists to one of the longest-running farces of our modern world. One was the revelation by the European Space Agency that in 2013 and 2014, after years when the volume of Arctic ice had been diminishing, it increased again by as much as 33 per cent. The other was that Canadian scientists studying the effect of climate change on Arctic ice from an icebreaker had to suspend their research, when their vessel was called to the aid of other ships trapped in the thickest summer ice seen in Hudson Bay for 20 years.

A group is planning to unveil an 8-foot-tall bronze statue featuring a goat-headed Satan in Detroit during a gathering that’s being billed as the “largest public satanic ceremony in history.”

The Satanic Temple has said Saturday’s private event will be open only to people with tickets, $25 each. Invitations to “The Unveiling” summoned guests to prepare for “a night of chaos, noise, and debauchery… Come dance with the Devil and experience history in the making.” The event location is not being announced publicly and is known only to those with tickets.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I think anyone who for thousands of years has maintained the imposing position of religious head of 2/3 of Earth's population, and political head of the whole of it, must have executive ability! He is overdue for a statue! :)

The badge and uniform are infallible in the blind eyes of those who are too afraid to question authority. Police kill, we are told, because they have to make it home to their families at night. Police only harm those guilty of a crime….if you don’t want to get shot by police, don’t break the law they say.

Such asininity is unparalleled. However, it still doesn’t stop the apologists from pasting some derivative of the Gene Wilder meme all over the internet every time a cop is caught smashing in some innocent person’s face.

But the G7 is an equal opportunity exclusionist which means it’s not just former superpowers that aren’t welcome, but rising superpowers as well, which means you won’t be seeing Xi Jinping at the table either.

But “Big Uncle Xi” (as he is affectionately known in China) likely isn’t losing any sleep because in the eyes of Beijing, the G7 — much like the IMF and the ADB — is a relic of a global economic and political order that is well on its way to obsolescence if it isn’t there already.

As a long-time activist for Palestinian rights and an anti-Zionist, I should have been pleased to read that American Jews increasingly question their knee-jerk support for Israel. But instead, I felt a familiar frustration. Jewish American support for Israel has always been vital for Israel and not just for economic reasons. Among other things, Jewish American money and corporate support have been fundamental to Israel’s creation and to its infrastructure, and they enabled the development of Israel’s thriving hi-tech sector. But Israel also relies on Jewish American support for its feelings of legitimacy. As long as American Jews support Israel ‘right or wrong’, Israel feels justified in its existence and in everything it does.

The British authorities detained a number of Israeli officials on their arrival at London's Heathrow Airport earlier this week, it has been claimed by Israel's Channel 2 TV. Those held included the former head of Israeli military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, former Army Chiefs of Staff Danny Halotz and Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as ex-National Security Advisor Yaakov Amidror.

Channel 2 TV said that all were questioned briefly before being sent back to Israel. The station said that further details were not provided by Yadlin, so the situation remains unclear.

Most Republican voters want Donald Trump to remain in the race for president, and he's the candidate GOP voters are most likely to say they want to see on the debate stage, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll.

Trump, whose campaign for the presidency has come to dominate much of the news coverage of the Republican presidential field since he formally announced his candidacy in mid-June, remains a person Republican voters want to see more of, and a sizable 22% say they think he'll eventually win the party's nomination for president

“Under the laws in place at that time (and which are currently applicable to Pollard), a person with a life sentence is presumptively eligible for mandatory parole after 30 years unless the Parole Commission ‘determines that he has seriously or frequently violated institution rules or that there is a reasonable probability that he will commit any Federal, State, or local crime’,” it said. “Pollard is eligible for mandatory parole in November 2015.”

It looks to me as though we are heading into a deflationary depression, because the prices of commodities are falling below the cost of extraction. We need rapidly rising wages and debt if commodity prices are to rise back to 2011 levels or higher. This isn’t happening. Instead, Janet Yellen is talking about raising interest rates later this year, and we are seeing commodity prices fall further and further. Let me explain some pieces of what is happening.

1. We have been forcing economic growth upward since 1981 through the use of falling interest rates. Interest rates are now so low that it is hard to force rates down further, in order to encourage further economic growth.

In The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten defined chutzpah as "that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan." Today we have a new paradigm for chutzpah: the Israeli government's demand for "compensation" from the American taxpayers for the Iran nuclear agreement.

The police department in a small South Florida beachfront community decided in 2010 to turn itself into Miami Vice and run a money-laundering sting operation to catch drug dealers. The operation, which ended up laundering about $70 million, did so with either the knowledge, or willful ignorance, of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

For anyone just arrived from the planet Mars, here is a brief summary of Israel’s dependence on the US: it gets from it the bulk of its heavy arms and does not have to pay for them, it can depend on it to veto all UN Security Council resolutions that condemn Israel’s deeds and misdeeds, it receives from it billions of dollars every year although the Israeli economy is flourishing.

There is another benefit which is often overlooked. Since the world believes that both houses of the US Congress are totally subservient to Israel, all countries pay Israel for access to Congress. One has to bribe the doorkeeper to get in.

On July 20, 2015, UK Prime Minister David Cameron delivered a major speech to justify ongoing wars on “extremism.” Supporting corporate media analyses are here, here, here, here; with some honesty from George Monbiot, with a 1-minute corporate media cry for more military armed attacks “on this evil”:

Cameron’s speech promotes the UK “Extremist Bill” that bans all media (such as you’re reading now), and sends police to close any organization dictated by government as “extremist” (honest analyses by Glenn Greenwald and via Washington’s Blog). UK Home Secretary Theresa May spins Orwellian for government dictatorial power to criminalize “extremism” in a 12-minute BBC interview.

Please notice this is clear advocacy of literal dictatorship for government dictating/saying what is and is not “extremism” and “promotes values”:

Webmaster addition: Obviously the fact that the police could then take the $188 million in civil forfeiture was never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, a factor in the raid and arrest!

The ongoing border dispute between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its eastern neighbor Guyana is no simple disagreement over an arbitrary line on a map. Actually, it is a conflict of significant political and economic dimensions, one which will have deep and far-reaching geopolitical implications in the near and long term.

Only 10 days after the Greeks voted ‘No’ by a substantial majority against the Troika’s demands, Tsipras went further and put $55 billion of Greece’s national assets into a privatization ‘trust’ fund under EU supervision. This comes from Tsipras who had pledged to halt privatization in January’s election campaign. The deal is so harsh that even the IMF has criticized it.

It would be missing the point to say that Tsipras was hostile to the Troika. International finance institutions like it best when seemingly ‘radical’ figures do the dirty work for them rather than the professed neo-liberals. They would actually spin and portray the ‘reforms’ as ‘good for the people’. Even better so if the ‘radicals’ do not wear a tie.

When investing becomes gambling, bad endings follow. The next credit crunch could make 2008-09 look mild by comparison. Bank of International Settlements(BIS) data show around $700 trillion in global derivatives.

Along with credit default swaps and other exotic instruments, the total notional derivatives value is about $1.5 quadrillion – about 20% more than in 2008, beyond what anyone can conceive, let alone control if unexpected turmoil strikes.

July 25, 2015

Venezuela’s hyperinflation is reaching its final stages. It is probably already far too late for the government to stop the complete collapse of its currency. The bolivar is in the process of transforming from a medium of exchange to tinder for wood-stoves. Venezuelans who had the presence of mind to convert their savings into gold or foreign currency in good time are likely to survive the conflagration intact. Governments never seem to learn. They all believe they can somehow overrule economic laws by diktat. This is not only true of Venezuela’s government, but of practically every government in today’s world. Central planning of money has been adopted everywhere. Venezuela merely shows us what the end game for every fiat money system looks like.

If Trump took up a Third-Party, it might be the biggest shot we have at saving the country insofar as it would at least turn Capitol Hill into a new playing field. It really would not matter who the Third-Party candidate would be, Washington needs to be shaken and stirred vigorously to let these people know being a “representative” is supposed to be OF THE PEOPLE, not of yourself, the Party, and government.

On June 24, 2015, a court in The Hague ordered the Dutch government to act faster in its duty to protect its citizens against the effects of climate change. This marks the first time the issue has been legally declared a state obligation, regardless of arguments that the solution to the global climate problem does not depend on one country’s efforts alone. The decision was based on various branches of law, including, most importantly, human rights. In effect, it makes the Dutch government accountable for greenhouse gas emissions on its own territory, an outcome other countries may also need to heed.

It’s been a rough week for the IRS. On Monday it was revealed that during the last tax season, the IRS phone system hung up on 8.8 million callers looking for help with their taxes, a massive increase from the half a million hangups that were experienced the year before. The IRS is also being criticized for levying outrageous fines on businesses that reimburse their employees for health insurance; fines that are 12 times higher than the statutory limit written in the Affordable Care Act.

A report released this week by British-based watchdog Privacy International said Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was seeking to dramatically expand its ability to intercept communications.

BlackBerry encrypts data such as emails and its BlackBerry Messenger messages sent between a user’s phone and public networks, ensuring greater privacy for users but making life harder for police and intelligence agencies.

Remember back when UK law enforcement detained David Miranda while he passing through Heathrow airport for nine hours, under an anti-terrorism law, claiming that journalism could be terrorism? Apparently, UK law enforcement is really doubling down on that claim, with the new admission that there is an ongoing and open criminal investigation into the reporters who have published Snowden documents.

This is an out and out case where the MPAA is admitting to a plan whereby it will use mainstream media properties to run bogus and misleading stories to "attack" Google, to further the MPAA's (believed, but misleadingly so) business interests. Is this really how the Today Show and the WSJ pick their editorial topics?

Does Beinart really believe the media complex that gives the War Party a guaranteed platform suffers from amnesia? I hardly think so.

Peter Beinart asks some pretty good questions: he wants to know why the same crowd that lied us into war in Iraq isn’t completely discredited when it comes to their opposition to the recently concluded deal with Iran. No, he doesn’t put it quite that way, in part because, by his own admission, he was one of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for what he now describes as “one of the most important, and damaging, episodes in the history of U.S. foreign policy.” He frames his question this way:

“I have a fantasy. It’s that every politician and pundit who goes on TV to discuss the Iran deal is asked this question first: ‘Did you support the Iraq War, and how has that experience informed your position?’”

Beinart is right to regard this as a fantasy, because it will never happen. Yet he fails to ask why that is.

Houser was estranged from his family and had mental health issues.
He applied for gun but did not pass the background check.

Houser also supported Barack Obama.
He wrote this in his Manifesto (why do mass murderers always seem to have a rambling manifesto?)

I accepted this it came to me that the president is doing exactly what Tim McVeigh did,only the president is much more effective.The way I see it,the faster he wrecks this nation, which in no way resembles what it’s founders envisioned,the faster working people with morals may re-assume command.ie I was for his re-election. I like his spending habits.etc……

Mass murder is defined as the act of killing multiple people, though the particulars differ depending on who is doing the defining. The FBI, for example, defines mass murder as, “a number of murders (four or more) occurring during the same incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders. These events typically involved a single location, where the killer murdered a number of victims in an ongoing incident…”

So why it comes as a shock to anyone that the following actions of a peanut executive could possibly be defined as mass murder is ridiculous.

The feds have recommended a life sentence in the case of former Peanut Corporation of America owner Stewart Parnell who has been convicted in the case of selling truckloads of knowingly salmonella-tainted peanut butter out of his Georgia plant even after the product tested positive or the deadly bacteria.

British government under Cameron's watch has been an active and willing partner in the Machiavellian strategy of divide and rule in the Middle East spearheaded by the US and Israel.

Obama picked up where Bush left off, flooding Syrian and Libyan insurgent groups with untold largesse and arms, using the corrupted Arab Gulf kingdoms as conduits for weapons transfers for the sake of plausible deniability.

ISIS themselves have mostly eschewed hostility towards Israel, posting an official statement on social media in July 2014 saying that they’re more interested in fighting “Muslim infidels” than the Zionist state.[6]

Israeli officials have expressed similar sentiments, with Israel’s former envoy to the US,Michael Oren, stating in a September 2013 interview that Tel Aviv “prefers” ISIS and al-Qaeda over the “bad guys backed by Iran,” namely Syria’s Assad and Hezbollah.

Balsamic vinegar of Modeno — the ones we find at most grocery stores— is “commercial grade” balsamic vinegar. In other words, it is fake balsamic vinegar. In most cases, the balsamic vinegar we get is just grape juice with just a little bit of vinegar, artificial coloring and caramel.

These are just some of the "hot topics" on the agenda this week as conservative lawmakers, corporate lobbyists, and top GOP candidates from around the country gather in San Diego for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)'s annual meeting.

"A dark cloud is headed our way in the form of a shadowy lobbying organization that buys loyalty from state legislatures with untraceable corporate dollars and threatens the very fabric of our democracy."
—Francine Busby, San Diego County Democratic Party

"A dark cloud is headed our way in the form of a shadowy lobbying organization that buys loyalty from state legislatures with untraceable corporate dollars and threatens the very fabric of our democracy," San Diego County Democratic Party chair Francine Busby wrote in advance of the conference.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Come on, folks, the Democrats are no less complicit in this kind of behaviour than are their Republican brothers and sisters; look how the much publicly loathed mandatory vaccination bill was passed in California, and triumphantly signed into law by Governor Brown!!

As reported at the Sacramento Bee on 18 June, 2015:

"A subplot to the vociferous debate over the student vaccination bill moving through California’s Capitol is opponents’ allegations that the effort reflects the influence of the pharmaceutical industry.

Critics of Senate Bill 277, which would eliminate the personal belief and religious exemptions for schoolchildren, accuse the measure’s supporters in the Legislature of doing the bidding of donors who make vaccines and other pharmaceuticals.

The bill’s proponents and drug companies dismiss the charge. The companies’ lobbyist filings for the first quarter of this year as well as legislative committee reports show no connection between the pharmaceutical industry and SB 277.

“We aren’t pushing this bill behind the scenes,” said Priscilla VanderVeer, the senior director for communications for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA, the industry’s main trade group. The group has no taken no position on SB 277, although the group has long backed vaccinations as sound public health policy, she said.

Other legislation has a more direct bearing on the industry, and it is an active political player. Pharmaceutical companies and their trade groups gave more than $2 million to current members of the Legislature in 2013-2014, about 2 percent of the total raised, records show. Nine of the top 20 recipients are either legislative leaders or serve on either the Assembly or Senate health committees. Receiving more than $95,000, the top recipient of industry campaign cash is Sen. Richard Pan, a Sacramento Democrat and doctor who is carrying the vaccine bill.

In addition, the industry donated more than $500,000 to outside campaign spending groups that helped elect some current members last year."

People had better start getting damned angry about the companies which control legislation at the state and national level; then, we have to figure out what we do to prevent that from happening, ever again, in the most peaceful way possible.

The White House's decision to suspend enforcement of Obamacare's health insurance standards because of the website debacle was politically wise. (Its legality and implementation, however, remain uncertain.) But the main lesson we should draw from this incident is not that government can quickly change course in the face of failure. Rather, it teaches just the opposite: once Washington commits to a policy, it reverses direction only when waves of opposition engulf it.

The Afek oil and gas exploration company has almost completed its second drilling test in the Golan Heights, a part of Syria which Israel has occupied since 1967 and annexed in violation of international law.

The test is part of a three-year program to see if hydrocarbons in the area could lead to oil or gas for Israel.

Israel is fuel-poor and its domestic energy woes could be eased in the interim if the government progresses on deals in relation to the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea.

In addition, Israel is now taking advantage of the chaos in Syria to look for precious resources to extract from the occupied Golan Heights.

Genie Oil and Gas has some high profile investors and advisors: Media baron Rupert Murdoch, former US Vice President Dick Cheney, American hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt and British investment banker Jacob Rothschild are all members of the company’s “Strategic Advisory Board.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

Brisk territorial annexation for financial (and settlement) gain, coupled with serial genocide: this is the Israeli way, and world leaders will not dare say a word of reproach to this wretchedly apartheid, self-proclaimed theocracy with nuclear weapons.

The Justice Department said Pollard must serve his full 30-year sentence. It stressed that he has long been eligible for consideration for parole in November but insisted that the administration has no say in how that process unfolds.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Pollard wasn't given a thirty-year sentence. he was given a life sentence.

Proving that a larger regional war remains among the most significant threats of the protracted military campaign against the Islamic State (or ISIS), Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey confirmed on Monday that Turkish warplanes bombed several targets inside Syria on Monday.

According to the Associated Press:

Davutoglu said the airstrikes had "removed potential threats" to Turkey and targets were hit with "100 percent accuracy." He did not rule out further strikes, saying Turkey was determined to stave off all terror threats against it.

"This was not a point operation, this is a process," Davutoglu said. "It is not limited to one day or to one region... The slightest movement threatening Turkey will be retaliated against in the strongest way possible."

Turkish police on Friday launched a major operation against terror groups including IS, carrying out simultaneous raids in Istanbul and 12 provinces and detaining more than 290 people.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The big question that Davlutoglu and Obama need to ask themselves, strategically, is, what is Russia going to to do to support Al-Assad, in order to keep the warm water port of Tartus on the Mediterranean, and prevent his being liquidated through the process of "regime change"?!?

Probably these actions will be asymmetric, but no less effective in curbing Turkish and American designs to unseat al-Assad.

Welcome to the age of hackable automobiles, when two security researchers can cause a 1.4 million product recall. On Friday, Chrysler announced that it’s issuing a formal recall for 1.4 million vehicles that may be affected by a hackable software vulnerability in Chrysler’s Uconnect dashboard computers. The vulnerability was first demonstrated to WIRED by security researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek earlier this month when they wirelessly hacked a Jeep I was driving, taking over dashboard functions, steering, transmission and brakes. The recall doesn’t actually require Chrysler owners to bring their cars, trucks and SUVs to a dealer. Instead, they’ll be sent a USB drive with a software update they can install through the port on their vehicle’s dashboard.

Because Russia and China are set to settle gas (not to mention crude) sales in yuan, we argued that the consummation of the pipeline deals serves as further evidence of de-dollarization and the collapse of petrodollar mercantilism, the system that’s served to underwrite decades of dollar dominance.

And while data released since then shows that for the first time, Russia has surpassed Saudi Arabia as the largest supplier of oil to China (further supporting the idea that the petrodollar is rapidly losing ground to the “petroyuan”), it appears that China’s economic slowdown will delay the implementation of the Atlai deal – indefinitely. Here’s more from Vedomosti (Google translated):

Signing a contract with China for the supply of gas through the pipeline “Altai” (or “Power of Siberia – 2?) is delayed indefinitely, told “Vedomosti” two federal officials. The growth of the Chinese economy is slowing down, China is revising the energy balance, they explain.

Webmaster's Commentary:

As long as China can obtain cheaper gas, which suits the needs of a slowing economy, the Altai will not be necessary at the moment; but in the future, definitely so.

Over the last ten years, satellites show that the Earth is cooling. But that doesn’t suit the needs of the climate criminal community ahead of their convention in Paris this year, so NASA/NOAA created a completely fake surface temperature record – which is diverging from satellite temperatures at a rate of two degrees per century

China is assembling what has been hailed as the world's largest radio telescope, state media reported. The 500-meter tool will boast a dish the size of 30 football pitches, overtaking Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory, “only” 305 meters in diameter.

With a perimeter of about 1.6km, it will take up to 40 minutes to walk around the single-aperture spherical telescope, which is called "FAST". It will be constructed deep in the mountains of the southwestern Guizhou Province, built on a naturally formed bowl-shaped valley, Xinhua reports.

Pluto never ceases to amaze scientists: A new batch of images released by NASA’s New Horizons mission reveal an incredibly hazy atmosphere cast over the dwarf planet, as well as ice flowing on its surface – as glaciers flow on Earth.

The new set of high-resolution images of the planet’s surface reveal ice made of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane, flowing on Sputnik Planum, the flat plains on the western hemisphere of Pluto's Tombaugh Regio.

Last month in “PetroYuan Proliferation: Russia, China To Settle ‘Holy Grail’ Pipeline Sales In Renminbi,” we outlined how Moscow was set to deliver some 68 bcm/y in natural gas to China via the Power of Siberia line and the “Western Route”, or the “Altai” line. Here’s a quick recap: In May, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Moscow, where Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller and China National Petroleum Corp Vice President Wang Dongjin signed a gas export deal which paves the way for 30 bcm/y to China via a new “Western Route.” Last year, the two countries ratified a “Holy Grail” gas deal for the delivery of up to 38 bcm/y over 30 years via an “Eastern Route.” Also known as the “Power of Siberia” pipeline, the Eastern route was billed as the largest fuel network in the world with a total contract value of around $400 billion. Once the two pipelines are operational, China will become the largest consumer of Russian natural gas.

Details quickly emerged about Houser's mental problems, prompting authorities in Louisiana and Alabama to bemoan the underfunding of mental health services in America.

In recent years, Houser turned to right-wing extremist Internet message boards, where he praised Adolf Hitler, and advised people not to underestimate "the power of the lone wolf," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose hate-group watchdogs spotted Houser registering to meet with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in 2005.

Rather a long video, but the issue is that the German government is considering legislation imposing new requirements for the provenance of items like old books, ancient coins, and so forth. Now, there is no question that such provenance is needed as there is a great deal of fraud in antiquities, as illustrated by the Oded Golan epic, in which scientists determined that several of the items he tried to sell were hoaxes (yet somehow the Israeli courts found him innocent). But this law, crafted without input from collectors and dealers, imposes a twenty-year retroactive requirement for documentation, and places the burden of proof on the owner of the antiquity. Absent such a record or proof, the item is presumed under the law to be a fake, and therefore worthless. Coupled with the cost of compliance, this will drive many dealers out of business.

Requiring a twenty year record would be acceptable starting today. To require such a record from a time when it was not required is unrealistic, as is presuming items to be fake from the start absent such proof. There are no doubt a great many religious relics that fail that legal requirement (along with virtually every claim used to start a war these days).

This is another case of government taking a ham-fisted approach to a real problem, and ending up causing more harm than good!

According to The Center for Food Safety: "Koch Industries’ subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific, is a member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which donated more than $7 million against the recent Washington State ballot initiative to label GE foods. Monsanto, another GMA member, was the single largest contributor to that campaign. Between Washington State and California, Monsanto, GMA (including Georgia-Pacific), and others, have contributed over $67 million to keep consumers in the dark about GE foods."

Others quickly jumped onboard, especially those who would reap the biggest incremental profits such as biotech companies, and now the GMA and other industry groups like the Biotechnology Industry Organization are cheering Pompeo's legislation.

At the time, many were livid that a full-court press by a few corporations and even fewer billionaires would keep Americans in the dark as to the genetic content of the food they eat:

As if we need more proof of how tone deaf and self-destructive GOP elites can be towards their most reliable voters, the New York Times reports that at a weekend meeting of the Republican Governors Association there was an attempt by some “donors and operatives” to come up with a plan to bar current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump from the presidential debates.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The polls show Trump as the GOP's best bet against Hillary's presumed nomination, yet they are willing to throw that away because Trump won't play by their rules. That kind of decision making will likely drive a great many GOP voters into the Democratic camp, or to Trump's potential third party.

On Thursday, 275 members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of H.R. 1599, the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act. By voting for the DARK Act, these politicians voted against truth and transparency, against science, against the more than century-old right of states to legislate on matters relating to food safety and labeling. They voted against the 90-percent of Americans who are in favor of mandatory labeling of GMOs. They voted against the producers of non-GMO foods.

The United States will expand its training program for the Ukrainian armed forces, the Pentagon announced Friday. Currently around 300 soldiers from the Army’s 173rd Airborne brigade are training Ukrainian national guard troops in the western part of the country. Those troops fall under Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior and are not front line soldiers. This fall, however, the U.S. will begin training Ministry of Defense troops — front-line units that have been fighting against separatists in the east of the country.

Donald Trump’s rise in the Republican contest for the 2016 presidential nomination doesn’t appear to have been slowed much – at least not yet – by the recent controversy over his criticisms of Arizona Sen. John McCain’s war record last weekend. In fact, although Trump’s favorable ratings among Republicans have declined, he is still ahead – and far ahead – when Republicans are asked to choose among the 16 currently announced candidates.

Webmaster's Commentary:

People have a gut response in favor of the truth. Trump does not come across as your typical politically-correct "say anything to get elected", "never offend anyone" candidate, and people are responding to it. The GOP made a hideous strategic mistake trying to play up John McCain as some kind of hero above reproach, because in the age of the internet, the reality of McCain is well known.Click for larger image

The Deputy Chairman of Hamas has said that the Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank is the legitimate exercise of the people's right to confront the Israeli occupation in all its forms. It will not end, insisted Moussa Abu Marzouk, until the occupation ends.

There are 18 Jewish legislators acting on behalf of the Democratic Party in the US Congress, and they are perhaps the key to victory on both sides - for both opponents of the agreement with Iran and its supporters.

"Everyone is looking for us," Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D - California), who is Jewish, told Arutz Sheva. "Last week I met with a J Street lobby that tried to explain how good the agreement is at this point in time, and next week AIPAC officials will be here - I guess to push exactly the opposite position."

Lowenthal faces a difficult dilemma.

"You have to make a decision regarding the transaction, and the situation is very tense. On the one hand Israel says the deal is not good, on the other hand the president says so."

Alan Lowenthal and another 17 like him will be forced to make the painful decision between loyalty to Israel and loyalty to US President Barack Obama's Democratic party.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This should not even be an issue. These are AMERICAN citizens who are elected to the AMERICAN Congress and paid AMERICAN tax dollars to serve the AMERICAN people! The wants of a foreign government should not even be on their radar, let alone considered an equal priority! If they want to serve Israel that much put them on a plane to Tel Aviv and never let them come back! No government can serve two masters, and a government that serves Israel cannot and will not serve the American people. A friend of Israel is no friend of America. In these dark times America needs leaders who will put America first, second, and third!

Even if the 2015 defense budget is not dramatically increased, billions will still flow into IDF headquarters to cover the cost of this summer’s fighting in the Gaza Strip. It is reasonable to assume that the defense establishment will wield a bulging wallet, and will not return from its procurement visits to the defense industries with an empty shopping basket. Its shopping list is lengthening in direct proportion to the prolonging of the fighting in the south.

Members of Congress opposing the Iranian nuclear deal don’t seem to care that it’s a multilateral agreement their longest-serving European allies support. Europeans are far from impressed that the US legislature has taken hostage the diplomatic roadmap on the nuclear file that they played a critical role in negotiating. GOP Republicans have clearly attempted to shift the debate from a vote on the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) announced last week to one on the US presidential legacy and US-Iran relations. If Congress derails the JCPOA before it’s even had a chance to be implemented, it will likely have troubling ramifications for US relations with a long-term ally, Europe, particularly on future sanctions.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"To hell with Europe; we have to please Israel, first, foremost, and always!!!!!" -- Every member of congress who is a whore for Israel.

Former CIA contractor Steven Kelley said the United States wants to placate Israel after Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter stated that the recent Iran’s nuclear conclusion would not prevent the US from using military force if necessary.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Why does the United States, arguably the most powerful military on Earth, need to "placate" Israel, a nation half the size of New Jersey? As an American I am disgusted at the way our politicians grovel before Tel Aviv!

City bus driver, Kelvin Kirkpatrick purchased a set of glasses that take HD video as a means of feeling safe in the event the Metro Security cameras on his bus failed. However, these camera glasses would prove to be incredibly valuable in an entire other sense.

Tens of millions of pounds of UK aid money has been siphoned through charities linked to Hillary Clinton, it emerged last night.

British politicians – including Gordon Brown – stand accused of diverting huge amounts of cash through the organisations after falling under the spell of the US presidential candidate and her husband Bill.

At least £50 million of taxpayer-funded foreign aid money has gone to Clinton charities, which are at the centre of allegations in the US that foreign governments used donations to buy influence.